TERODANT.
This is the metropolis of the South, and was formerly that of the kingdom of Suse: the town is spacious, and very ancient. The buildings, generally speaking, are handsome. There is a magnificent palace here, with gardens producing in abundance a variety of the most delicious fruits. The adjacent plains are incredibly fertile. The population of this city has decreased considerably; it is now celebrated for salt-petre of a very superior quality; for the manufacture of leather, and for saddles; also for dyeing. The river Suse passes through the town. Terodant has stood various sieges; and during the last, the inhabitants were reduced to the necessity of eating rats and dogs, and burning their doors for fuel.
FOOTNOTES:
[40]There is in the middle of the town a mattamora, or dungeon, where they used to confine their Christian captives taken by the corsairs.
[41]In distinction from El Bahaira, which implies a kitchen garden.
[42]It is well known that the vessels formerly fitted out by the town of Salée, for the purpose of capturing the defenceless merchant ships of Europe, were navigated by desperate banditti.
[43]One of the entrances of the town.
[44]The Count was nephew to the Duke de Crillon, and had been confined in France during the reign of Robespierre, but had effected his escape; the rigour of his confinement, however, brought on a disorder which carried him off.
[45]Subterraneous vaults, or holes made in the form of a cone, where corn is deposited, and these being closed at the opening, it will keep thirty years or more.
[46]Formerly called Anafa, probably from the quantity of anise-seed grown in the neighbourhood, anafa being the Arabic word for anise-seed.
[47]These mountains are said to abound in iron, as the name expresses; they are covered with bole armoniac or red bole.
[48]Saweera being derived from Tasaweera, which, in the African Arabic, signifies a drawing or painting.
[49]A cargo of corn free of duty, was given by the Emperor to the person who presented him with this gun.
[50]When Commodore Crosby, in his Majesty’s ship Trusty, accompanied by three small frigates, came down to Mogodor, he anchored off the Long Battery, at about a mile and a half distant; at this time the town was so little prepared for defence, that the guns were not mounted, and when they began to do this, they were half an hour in mounting one! It was understood that the Commodore’s orders were indefinite; he was to act according to circumstances; but the Governor was apprised by the Emperor of the probability of a visit from the English, and had received orders at the same time to treat them in a friendly manner; cattle and other provisions were accordingly sent off to the ships, and all hostile operations were thus prevented; the Commodore departed on the third day after his arrival; and the two nations continued on friendly terms with each other.
[51]In all Mohammedan countries in Africa, the gates of the town are shut on the Friday during prayers, on account of an ancient superstitious tradition among the people, that their country will be attacked by the Christians, and taken from them by surprise, at that time.
[52]The Bashaw Billa.
[53]I have seen the fishermen draw more fish at one haul of the net, than a boat could carry. After depositing the first boat-load, they have gone back to load the remainder left on the beach.
[54]See the [Map of West Barbary.]
[56]It appears from the testimony of the Moors as well as the Berebbers, that Marocco is a more ancient town than Fas: we have not, however, any written account of it previous to the 424th year of the Hejira.
[57]This cement is called Tabia by the Moors. Livy tell us that the walls of Saguntum were built with mortar made of earth.
[58]The Emperor, Seedy Mohammed, who died in 1790, after reigning thirty-three years, shewed a great predilection for the city of Marocco, and caused several regular pavilions to be built by Europeans in the midst of the palace gardens; these are of hewn stone, and finished in a plain substantial style. There are many private gardens in the city, containing the most delicious fruits, and having pavilions decorated much in the style of those above described, which form a curious contrast with the real, or apparent wretchedness of the surrounding buildings.
[59]This is the man to whom Rhazes, the Arabian physician, dedicated his book de Variolis et Morbillis.
[60]See [page 38.]
[61]It appears, however, that they have been taken down, and afterwards replaced, or others substituted.
[62]See under [Zoology.]
[63]See under [Zoology.] Though not now worshipped, the serpent was probably one of the deities previous to the introduction of Mohammedanism.
[64]An Arabic title implying commander of the faithful.
[65]The year of the Mohammedans is lunar. The Hejira began in July 622 A.C.
[66]He built a town for the same purpose in the plains of M’sharrah Rumellah, and in other places, all which are now in ruins.
[67]This prince fled from Medina in Arabia, to avoid the persecution of the Khalif Abd Allah, and retiring into Africa, penetrated to the west of the Atlas, where, being struck with the beauty of the adjoining plains, he founded the city of Fas, having previously propagated the religion of the Arabian prophet at the place now called the Sanctuary of Muley Dris Zerone, in the Atlas mountains, west of the city of Mequinas.
[68]There are many other kinds of marble in this country, similar to what is found in different parts of Italy, and the rest of Europe.
[69]Most of the principal inhabitants have baths in their own houses.
CHAPTER V.
Zoology.
The horses of West Barbary, though small, are renowned for fleetness and activity; the breed, however, has been much neglected, except in Abda, and about Marocco, at a place called Ain Toga; these horses have stronger sinews than those of Europe, and after a little training are peculiarly docile. The stallions only are rode, the mares being kept for breeding, except among the Shelluhs, who use them for riding. Geldings are unknown in Mohammedan countries; a Mooselmin will neither castrate, nor sell the skin of the beast of the Prophet.
The Arab is particularly attached to the horse: he rises with the sun, visits him, and laying his right hand on the horse’s face, he ejaculates the words (Bissim illah) In the name of God; he then kisses his hand, which is supposed to have received a benediction from the touch of the favourite animal of their Prophet Mohammed; he then has the place where the horse stands swept clean, some dry sand spread, and an arm full of straw trodden small by oxen, placed before him at such a distance, that he can by stretching out his neck just reach it (for the horse being picqueted, and fastened by ropes round the fetlock, cannot move from his place): this is done to lengthen the neck, and to strengthen the fore-hand by exertion; the length of neck is considered as a great perfection, so that when the Arabian jockies purchase a horse, they measure from the top of the shoulder to the tip of his nose; and then from the top of the shoulder, to the end of the fleshy part of the tail; if the length of the former exceed that of the latter, it is the criterion of a good horse; but if the latter half exceed the front half in length, the horse is considered of an inferior kind. Such a predilection have Mohammedans for ablution, that the best horses are sprinkled with water every morning on the chest, loins, and sexual parts; this, as they pretend, improves the strength of the animal, and promotes his health; at noon only he is watered; then he has a little more straw, and remains afterwards fasting till sun-set, when they feed him with a bag of barley, attached to his head like our hackney-coach horses: they reprobate Christians for feeding their horses in a manger, and observe, that when a horse is used to a manger, he will not eat out of a bag, and as mangers are not to be found in this country in travelling, the plausibility of preferring the bag is evident: they do not suffer him to eat any straw after the feed of barley, alleging, that it would destroy the good effect of the latter.
The Arabs are expert farriers; their horses are generally healthy, but are subject to jaundice, which they cure by drawing the skin from the flesh at certain places with a pair of pinchers, and then piercing it with a hot iron like an awl. They turn them out to grass every spring during forty days, after which they physic them thus: they give them a pound of old butter, called budra,[70] which they mix with two ounces of pepper; they give this to the horse in a fluid state, that it may be the more easily swallowed; they then let him remain the whole day fasting, giving him in the evening only half of his accustomed quantity of barley; they next keep them without riding seven days: this process is said to secure the horse against disorders, and quickly takes off the prominent belly common after grass, disposing the flesh to the flanks.
To the various colours of horses they attach various properties; they assert, that a dark-coloured or black horse is in his fullest vigour towards dark, or night; that the powers of a chesnut horse come with the rising sun, and he is not so fleet in the evening; to a white horse they attribute vigilance; and of a gray they signify the soundness of their feet, by an Arabian adage,[71] which indicates that if a cavalcade be passing through a stony country, the gray horses will break the stones with their feet; this opinion appears founded on experience, for in the Atlas mountains, in some parts of Suse, and in all harsh stony districts, we find a much greater proportion of gray horses than of any other colour; their feet are so hardy, that I have known them to travel two days journey through the stony defiles of Atlas without shoes, over roads full of loose broken stones, and basaltic rocks.
Besides horses, mules and asses abound every where in Barbary, also camels, and horned cattle. In the Atlas, and in the forests near Mequinas, there are lions, panthers, wild hogs, hyænas, apes, jackals, foxes, hares, serpents, lizards, camelions, &c.
The birds are, ostriches, pelicans, eagles, flamingoes, storks, herons, bustards, wild geese, wood pigeons, pigeons, turtle-doves, ring-doves, partridges, red ducks, wild ducks, plovers, tibibs,[72] larks, nightingales, black birds, starlings, and various others.
The same varieties of fish that are found in the Mediterranean are taken on the shores of West Barbary; mullet, red and gray, brim, anchovies, sardines, herrings, mackarel, rock cod, skaite, soles, plaice, turbot, turtles, besides fish peculiar to the coast, called by the Shelluhs, Azalimzi, Tasargalt, and Irgal, which are very abundant, particularly in the bay of Agadeer, and on the coast of Wedinoon; they are prepared in the ovens of Aguram, a town at the foot of the mountain whereon Agadeer stands, for the purpose of being conveyed to the interior, to Bled el-jerrêde, and Sahara; these fish form a considerable article of commerce, and are much esteemed in Bled-el-jerrêde.
As there is no country in the world so little explored as Africa, nor any that produces such a variety of animals, a few observations on some of the most remarkable may not be uninteresting.